Disclaimer – This is not the official IBC list for October. In lieu of the contest, we will be launching our list on 11th October. 

The third shortlisted entry for our IBC prediction contest comes from Ivan Watts from the USA. Go through it let us know what you think – 

NEO

My first pick, which may or may not surprise people, is NEO, mostly based on news, or reaction to it, not necessarily based on the recent price doubling. (I had actually written a draft of this on Monday and saved it without finishing it, then woke up pleasantly surprised to the price move today). NEO, formerly Ant shares, is China’s first public blockchain and it is still around i.e. hasn’t been completely banned outright (yet), which in China is saying something. From reading Digital Gold the impression is unless it is specifically and explicitly forbidden then it is permissible in China, a rather stark contrast to Western business, and it is very important to note that China has not forbidden cryptocurrency itself, just ICOs and exchanges, and OTC trading has surged. Since both of these could make the argument that they enable capital flight from the country, this can make sense from this point of view. NEO founder Da Hongfai has always said NEO is pro-government, which while frustrating to some can also be a lifeline to NEO as it may be spared the crackdown. He was also ‘allegedly’ told about the exchange shutdowns ahead of time which if true would mean a lot of trusts has been placed on him by people in government. PBoC experiments with blockchain technology may also be an indicator that China is seeking a more home grown blockchain product to enable its population to use and interact with behind the Great Firewall. A user on Reddit had also made a good point months ago, one that I agree with and have seen from personal experience, that Chinese people like to be on the forefront of trends (as perhaps demonstrated by the Ant shares-to-NEO rebrand), so once a product gets noticed and marked as trendy, it can take very little time for the groundswell to build to critical mass. As far as pricing goes, it is currently at around half of its ATH (update, now about ¾ ATH), and considering 3 months ago it was trading for about a third of its current, showing that it has a lot of room to both grow and move, and considering that it hit the 16$ support and didn’t drop further shows with the right positive news, this crypto may have some staying power.

Bitcoin

There is a rumour going around that Amazon may be accepting it around the end of the month, possibly as a result of or possibly during the annual shareholder meeting. If this is true, we could be seeing the beginning of cryptocurrency’s “Netscape moment” of widespread consumer adoption due to ease of use and availability. Would expect the price to rise possibly irrationally around the first week of October, and then if the rumour is correct and Amazon does pick it up, the price could skyrocket instantly. This could present an offset to the expected November hard fork and could dispel some of the FUD surrounding it. However, if the rumour proves false then I see very little to keep it from going down, especially in conjunction with any problems or issues immediately before or after the fork. This is a double-edged sword at this time, with a lot of gains but also potentially some losses.

Bitcoin Cash  

Since we are going for coins in October and not November here, I will go with Bitcoin Cash as having larger gains leading up to the expected SegWit2x fork in November. This is based on the expected FUD surrounding the split, possibly mirroring the Bitcoin Cash split back in August, only now there isn’t a clear alternative to what may happen. We could potentially have “Bitcoin legacy” and “Bitcoin Segwit2x” on our hands. If the fork process doesn’t come away squeaky clean or at least with minimal bumps in the process, I foresee a flight from Bitcoin investors to one of the Bitcoin alternatives, and BCC may be in one of the best positions to pick up the slack and hash power of the flagship cryptocurrency.

Vertcoin/Decred 

2 words. “Atomic Swaps”. What that means is it may soon be possible to instantaneously and freely interchange 2 different types of cryptocurrency in 2 different chains with one transaction.  Think of it like throwing a football to a friend except in flight the football changes to.a baseball or frisbee, for free as in no charge. No middleman, i.e. exchange, needed. This can greatly increase the fungibility and utility of any cryptocurrency, and with Decred and Vertcoin have been testing it puts them in a prime position to go up in value, especially since Vertcoin is still under a dollar. Also, recently Decred has stated they were able to make it happen in their manner with the next pick on my list…

Litecoin

My dark horse coin, as while Ethereum may have been up 3800% from the beginning of the year at one point, even with the recent downturn from its ATH of ~100USD earlier this month  (+2500% from the beginning of the year), it is still up over 1000% overall for the year. Of note is the fact that pretty much the whole reason for the lowered prices has been the FUD from the Chinese actions, and with that being cleared up I would say the road would look clear. Also, the tech looks extremely good, with the previously mentioned recent Atomic Swaps, as well as Lightning network, a fast almost instantaneous transaction network, and MAST implementation, which would give LTC the ability to perform smart contracts. Add in the final kicker that the wunderkind founder Charlie Lee quit his job at Coinbase recently to begin working full-time on Litecoin (which is impressive considering that the man’s SIDE PROJECT currently has a market cap of $3 BILLION), and you can see why I’m pumped for LTC.

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